Santa Rosalia, Mexico:
Good Summer Dorado And Baqueta Fishing

July 22, 2006, Mike Kanzler, Isla San Marcos, Hot weather and very good fishing at Santa Rosalia:

I fished three days this week.

One can sum up Santa Rosalia fishing area weather by saying "hot and sticky." It's been in the high 80s to mid 90s. The biggest difference is humidity. I'm wet just sitting on the boat down here with the near 80 to 100 percent humidity! Winds out of the southeast made for sloppy seas on a few days.

Santa Rosalia water temperatures are at 80 degrees for the inshore waters and high as 87 degrees offshore and at Tortuga Island. Visibility is so-so with 25 to 40 feet inshore and super clear in the hot stuff offshore to 60-plus feet.

While I was up north reading reports on Mexfish.com as well as BloodyDecks.com I noted a lot of reports saying "poor fishing," including phases like "worst dorado season I've seen," "waters too hot," and so on.

It took me all of one day to shoot that down into Davey Jones' locker.

In dorado fishing the last two days, two boats got over 100-plus chicken dodos which after the first bait hit the water you couldn't beat them off with a stick! And this all going down right on the bajo and in Craig Channel. Okay, there is nothing over 15 pounds, but it's tons of fun on light tackle.

On Wednesday, Daniel Lopez took brothers Paul and Sergio Aguilar Perlta of Santa Rosalia out for a day of fishing. I was along as an observer and needed to dial in some fishing spots on the new GPS.

With super flat seas and a tank full of bait, Isla Tortuga was in the cards.

We started the day fishing my favorite grouper spot. Most of the morning was spent pulling nice leopard grouper, 20 pound yellowtail, and the primary target, big sawtail grouper. However it seemed like not that many were biting or my deckhand Danny fished them out while I was gone.

Paul did get a 25 pound Sawtail grouper to convince me, that some were still down there. I had a sailfish grab a dropper loop bait on the way down, but jumped off.

We went to mark the forbidding and hardest spot to fish at Isla Tortuga. Punta Azul is the name. Fast currents in 380-400 feet of water makes it what it is.

I dropped a bigeye on the loop. When you are using mono and the bite feels more as of it's lifting than going away from you, you'd better be reeling as fast as you can. Fifteen minutes later and wet with sweat this 50-plus pound monster Baqueta floats. It's the biggest baqueta, or rooster hind, I've caught or seen for that matter. We caught another smaller one at 30 pounds and the box was full and faces smiling. So we headed back for the barn.

Mexico Fishing Home Page < Santa Rosalia Contents < Report

Copyright ©